Several months ago, we reviewed Corsair and OCZ DDR550. Those memories were based on the 2nd generation Hynix memory chips, called Hynix B, and offered the highest memory speeds that we had tested up to that point. Hynix has continued development of the B chip, and we're taking a look at two new memories based on the latest Hynix B chips. Both are rated at DDR550, and both extend memory speed to even higher levels than what we saw in the last generation.

OCZ requires no introduction, as they have been in the forefront in recent months with some of the fastest enthusiast memory on the market. Shikatronics, however, is probably not a familiar brand name to many in the United Sates. Based in Montreal, Shikatronics has produced memory since 1989, and is well-known in North and South America as an OEM for memory products. Shikatronics recently decided to market their own brand of Enthusiast RAM, which they call ShikaXRAM. When Shika asked if we would like to take a look at their DDR550 product, we talked with them about their goals, manufacturing philosophies, and Customer Service. We liked what we heard and agreed to take a look at their new products. However, we really were not prepared for the outstanding performance that we found with the Shikatronics DDR550.

Since both the ShikaXRAM PC4400 and OCZ PC4400 EL Gold are based on the same Hynix B chips, we decided to look at both the memories in the same review. We think that you will be as surprised as we were at how very well both new products performed in our memory benchmarks.

OCZ PC4400 EL Gold

The EL label, for Enhanced Latency, is used for OCZ memory that provides the fastest timings at a given speed. While 2.5-4-4-8 may not sound like fast timings, it is still faster than the rated timings of other DDR550. The chips used in the 4400 EL are said to be much faster than other DDR550 chips at DDR400. The EL is also said to overclock further than other DDR550 chips.

Test DIMMs were a matched pair of PC4400EL Gold with gold heatspreaders.

OCZ has established a solid reputation in the Enthusiast memory market in the past year, primarily because of the excellent reputation that they have developed for customer service. OCZ sports a lifetime warranty, like several other enthusiast memory manufacturers, but we also receive numerous emails from customers who are surprised and pleased with the responsiveness of OCZ customer support. Once a customer contacts OCZ customer service, they appear to get very quick resolution to their problems.

OCZ PC4400EL Gold Specifications

OCZ PC4400EL Gold Memory Specifications

Number of DIMMs & Banks

2 DS

DIMM SizeTotal Memory

512 MB1 GB

Rated Timings

2.5-4-4-8 at DDR550

Rated Voltage

2.75V

As seen with other very high speed memory, the 4400EL needs higher than normal voltage at its specified speed. 2.75V is higher than the 2.5V to 2.6V that is standard for memory on most motherboards, but it should be available on most of the high-end boards that would likely be used with this DDR550 memory. You should check your specifications to make sure that you can support the voltage needs of the new 4400EL modules.

Shikatronics XRAM PC4400

Since Shikatronics will be a new company for many of our readers, you can find more information on the Shika XRAM Enthusiast Memory at http://www.shikatronics.com/shikaxram/. The main Corporate site will give you a better idea of the broad line of memory products produced by this Canadian company.

From the packaging to the heatspreaders to the PCB, the Shika XRAM exuded quality. Shika may be a new name to you, but their products appear to be very high quality. This is also reflected in the ISO 9001 certification of the Shika manufacturing plant.

Shika is another company to provide a Lifetime Warranty on their memory products. They also proclaim on their web site that they will replace any defective Shika RAM products within 24 hours. We do not have experience with Shika customer service, but certainly they are taking an approach to their customers that, like OCZ, will allow them to stand out from the crowd.

ShikaXRAM PC4400 Specifications

ShikaXRAM PC4400 Memory Specifications

Number of DIMMs & Banks

2 DS

DIMM SizeTotal Memory

512 MB1 GB

Rated Timings

3-4-4-8

Rated Voltage

2.6V to 2.8V

Shikatronics states that the DIMMs are tested as a matched pair on both Intel 875/865 motherboards and AMD nForce2 motherboards.

Performance Test Configuration

We tested both the OCZ PC4400EL Gold and the ShikaXRAM PC4400 on our standard Intel Pentium 4 Memory testbed. The hardware for evaluating these two new memories is the same used in our earlier reviews of DDR400 and faster Memory.

All test conditions were as close as possible to those used in our earlier memory reviews. We have also eliminated from our charts any memory that has been discontinued, including Winbond BH5 versions from several vendors and earlier versions of several current memory products.

We have found the fastest performance on Intel 865/875 to be achieved at Cycle Time or tRAS of 5, or the fastest tRAS setting that is stable with the tested memory. Intel platform benchmarks were run with the fastest stable tRAS timings that we could achieve with the memory being tested.

Test Settings

We ran our standard suite of memory performance benchmarks. The following settings were tested with both ShikaXRAM PC4400 and OCZ PC4400EL Gold:

1000FSB/DDR500 - a standard speed rating that we have used in testing the highest speed memory available.

1100FSB/DDR550 - the rated speed of both ShikaXRAM PC4400 and OCZ PC4400EL Gold.

Highest Stable Overclock - the highest settings we could achieve with this memory and other memory that we have tested.

These are the same general settings used in benchmarking other memory in the above list of memory tests. DDR400, DDR500 and Highest Memory Speed have been used for all benchmarking. DDR550 has only been tested in the past for modules with this speed rating, and are included where available.

AMD Athlon64 Tests

We verified that both the Shikatronics and OCZ DDR550 could run at DDR500 on several of the Athlon64 Socket 939 motherboards that we are currently testing. However, we could not achieve stable operation at DDR550 with any of the boards that we are testing. We are in the process of evaluating a number of Athlon64 Socket 939 boards, and we will standardize on an A64 memory test bed in the near future.

Please keep in mind that only the Asus P4C800-E and DFI LANParty 875B manage to run consistently at DDR550 1:1 in our Intel tests. The fact that DDR550 would not run on the Athlon 64 test beds in our lab does not mean that DDR550 will not run on Athlon 64. In fact, we had no problem running DDR533 speed on the MSI K8N Neo2 and a pre-release Asus A8V Deluxe. When we have completed reviews of the new Socket 939 motherboards, we will select a motherboard for our Athlon 64 Memory Test platform.

Test Results: OCZ PC4400EL Gold

To be considered stable for test purposes, Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, Super PI, Aquamark 3, and Comanche 4 had to complete without incident. Any of these, and in particular Super PI, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration. "Return to Castle Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory" is proving to be a sensitive benchmark for memory testing. We have included results for RCW-ET using the Radar benchmark.

OCZ PC4400EL Gold (DDR550) - 2 x 512Mb Double-Bank

Speed

Memory Timings & Voltage

Quake3 fps

Sandra UNBuffered

Sandra Standard Buffered

Super PI 2M places(time in sec)

Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territoryfps

400DDR800FSB

2-3-3-52.5V

326.4

INT 2731FLT 2750

INT 4450FLT 4448

132

69.4

500DDR1000FSB

2.5-3-4-62.65V

398.7

INT 3259FLT 3265

INT 5544FLT 5511

107

85.8

550DDR1100FSB

3-4-4-72.75V

430.9

INT 3480FLT 3444

INT 6036FLT 6035

98

92.6

578DDR1156FSB

3-4-4-72.85V

449.5

INT 3709FLT 3738

INT 6406FLT 6314

93

97.0

The latest Hynix B chips are certainly pushing the envelope for memory performance on OCZ PC4400EL. The FSB results are the highest that we have tested with DDR memory, and this is reflected in the other benchmark results as well. This new memory is knocking at the door of DDR600, and we suspect DDR memory manufacturers to reach that magic plateau in the near future.

Test Results: ShikaXRAM PC4400

To be considered stable for test purposes, Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, Super PI, Aquamark 3, and Comanche 4 had to complete without incident. Any of these, and in particular Super PI, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration. "Return to Castle Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory" is proving to be a sensitive benchmark for memory testing. We have included results for RCW-ET using the Radar benchmark.

ShikaXRAM PC4400 - 2 x 512Mb Double-Bank

Speed

Memory Timings & Voltage

Quake3 fps

Sandra UNBuffered

Sandra Standard Buffered

Super PI 2M places(time in sec)

Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territoryfps

400DDR800FSB

2-3-3-52.5V

325.4

INT 2742FLT 2775

INT 4453FLT 4444

132

69.2

500DDR1000FSB

2.5-3-4-62.65V

398.7

INT 3286FLT 3252

INT 5501FLT 5503

107

86.0

550DDR1100FSB

3-4-4-72.75V

430.3

INT 3490FLT 3479

INT 6026FLT 6026

98

92.2

580DDR1160

3-4-4-72.85V

451.8

INT 3758FLT 3727

INT 6328FLT 6334

92

97.1

We would have been very pleased to see a new memory brand for AnandTech just hold their own in our memory tests against the best Enthusiast memory that you can buy. It was more than surprising, then, to find ShikaXRAM PC4400 to be the fastest memory that we have yet tested. It is exciting to see a FSB setting of 290 run with complete stability on our test P4C800-E. It would not be fair or consistent, however, to make too much of the ShikaXRAM speed record. The performance of the Shikatronics and OCZ PC4400 modules is consistent across the board, and the OCZ PC4400 is actually a bit faster at some slower speeds. The variations between the two memories is less than you might find in any production run of DIMMs with the latest Hynix B chips, and the performance has to be considered equivalent.

Performance Comparisons

Performance of the ShikaXRAM PC4400 and OCZ PC4400EL Gold was compared to all of the memory recently tested on the Intel 875 memory test bed in:

Memory performance was compared at DDR400, DDR500 and the highest stable overclock we could achieve that would run Quake 3, UT2003, and Super PI to 2MM places. Where the data was available, comparisons were also made at DDR433 and DDR466.

All discontinued products have been removed from benchmark comparisons. Since Mushkin claims availability of Mushkin 3200 2-2-2 Special for the next 1 to 2 months, it will be included in memory benchmark comparisons until it is no longer available for purchase.

Results are compared for Quake 3, Sandra UNBufferred Memory Test, and Super PI. SiSoft Sandra 2004 reports 2 results for each memory test: an Integer value and a Float value. Results reported in our charts are the result of averaging the INT and FLOAT scores, which are normally close in value. In other words, INT and FLOAT scores were added and divided by 2 for our reported score.

DDR400 Performance

DDR500 Performance

DDR550 Performance

Highest Memory Speed Performance

Final Words

OCZ and Shikatronics have produced the fastest memory that we have yet tested at AnandTech. The latest Hynix B chips used in both memories are incredibly fast, and both memories are performing very close to the DDR600 threshold. Across the board, the performance of the two new DDR550 memories is equivalent, and both outperform the earlier DDR550 memory, which we reviewed at Anandtech.

We have come to expect OCZ to perform at or near the top of our memory review tests, but the fact that ShikaXRAM is also performing at the top of our review charts says worlds about the quality of the new Shikatronics memory. While ShikaXRAM is a new name to many in the US market, based on the performance of the PC4400, Shikatronics is a company producing very competitive Enthusiast memory products. We cannot draw a conclusion with just one product, but we are certainly impressed with what we found in quality and performance with the ShikaXRAM PC4400.

If you want the fastest DDR memory that you can buy, then either ShikaXRAM PC4400 or OCZ PC4400 EL Gold will fit the bill. The top DDR performance is a moving target, and both these new memories based on the latest Hynix B chips raised the bar a bit higher. For those of you who will fret that the timings for DDR580 performance are 3-4-4-7, we would point out that DDR2 requires even slower 4-4-4 timings. The additional latencies of DDR2 at the present time also cause DDR2 at 533 speed to perform about the same as fast DDR at DDR433. The 6400 Standard (buffered) Sandra 2004 memory bandwidth that we achieved at DDR580 is the highest result we have seen so far on our Intel test bed, as is the 3750 unbuffered memory bandwidth.

We have looked at the question of which is best - slower memory at fast timings or fast memory at slower timings - in many past reviews. We leave that argument to those reviews. 1:1 memory performance is always a bit faster than asynchronous operation due to latency differences. Also, we know of no fast CAS 2 or CAS 2.5 memory that can even approach DDR580 timings. In the end, these results are the highest that we have achieved with any memory we have tested. This, of course, comes with a price, since there are very few motherboards available that can run at DDR580, and only a very few CPU combinations that can achieve these kinds of overclocks. However, if your system can do it and top speed is the goal of your overclocking, you can't do better than the new ShikaXRAM and OCZ PC4400 memory.

Hynix memory chips have carried a very high tariff in the US, and this might give a pricing advantage to Shikatronics, which is located in Canada. However, we could not find ShikaXRAM PC4400 available for sale in the US market. This means that it is much easier to find OCZ PC4400EL Gold for sale at vendors in the US. However, Shikatronics does sell directly on their website, and you can request pricing information on their website. Whichever memory you buy, we do not think you will be disappointed in the high-speed performance.